First Weekend

I have already been here for a week!! Its hard to believe. Friday night, I went with Gonzalo (a past exchangee who speaks English and who I talked to before I came), Julia (an exchange student from Australia), and some of their friends to the theatre. I understood some of what was going on, between the words that I knew and the actions of the actors. Then I hung out with them until 1:30 and went home. After the play, an exchange student from another program (Philip from Germany), his sister, and a friend joined us. The next day, I slept in. When I woke up, I went for a one hour walk to explore my neighbourhood/the shopping district about 10 minutes away. It was fun, and good to get exercise. In the afternoon, a friend from school (Gisela) picked me up and I went to her house for a few hours. Two other girls and 2 guys from school were also there. Later, the girls and I went downtown with Gisela´s bro and a friend. We walked around, through stores them teaching me vocab. We also went to the arcade and played ´taca taca´ ie foosball. After this...I went with Johanna to the disco...ie club. We did some crazy dancing, and I salsaed with some of the guys we went with!!!!! (I am bad tho...definitely need some more intensive learning if i´m going to do it when I get home...) I got home at 5 am....insanity. Johanna usually is out til about 6 30 or 7...... I can´t imagine!!
I slept til 1 the next day, and woke up with the cold that I have felt coming on for several days. After brunch...I went with Johanna and Maxiel (my unofficial other host ´sister´) to Maxiel´s house. While there, I saw a huge Catholic parade that happens once a year. There were tons of man powered floats of Christ, Mary, crosses, and many many huge flags. I was blown away by the number of people.
We drove to a place that overlooks the city, and took some pics there (I hope to load them onto the comp sometime soon so that you can see). then Johanna dropped Maxiel and I off at the plaza (city centre) where we took some more pictures. I saw the first house of the city (now a museum, and yes Dad...i plan on going) The first bank, the 2nd house (now hotel), the municipal buildings (much more elegant than wiarton) as we walked home. The walk was very scenic....about 2 1/2 hours. Many people go for walks on sunday afternoons, it was nice. We walked through the cemetery, which seems weird, but it is beautiful. Maxiel told me that it is the second most beautiful in all of South America. The first woman of Punta Arenas is buried there, in a huge, ornate building with gardens all around it. There are fences to keep people out of it. It is hard to describe...but beautiful. Then we walked along the Strait of Magellan, and again more photos. Back at home, we warmed up (there is crazy amounts of wind here) and then watched cool runnings. I tried to blog last night, but just as I finished, the internet crashed. This morning, Mema (my host mom) did not hear her alarm, so I slept through school, waking up at about 10. It was good though, I needed the sleep and school this morning would not have been nice with my sore throat and runny nose.
Well...that basically sums up my first weekend of adventure....
xoxo

Friends..

Well...I have made friends here in this other culture. Some of them speak english, but don´t because they know I want to learn. They are very fun, and simpatico (nice) which to me also means sympathetic because they speak slowly for me, repeat often, and laugh much. I am typing from my school. The administration is letting me use the internet free (usually it costs the students money...tho very little, because the high speed is expensive). Also..this is during class time, but I was told that I dont have to worry much about school for 2 weeks to a month. Yesterday, we only had classes in the morning, and I was with 3B. They were a very fun class, lots of cool people. In the afternoon, I tried to sleep for a bit, but couldn´t. I can feel the effects of my lack of sleep, and hope that this weekend I will be able to catch up. Then i went for a run, and was gone for about an hour (didn´t run the whole time...i am out of shape, but will hopefully be fit as a fiddle when I return). I wrote a letter home, and then some girls from my class came to get me because 3A had a bienvendida fiesta (welcome party) for me last night. The girls house was not far from mine, so we walked there. We started dancing after awhile, and did so for about 2 hours or so. Between the mass amounts of dance and my run....my legs were kinda sore. One of the guys in my class has a car, so he and some others drove me home. Very nice of them!! One of Johanna´s friends was there, so I showed them pics of the fiesta and from home. Then tried to sleep. And now, this morning, I am at school. I just chose my courses until december. My elective is biology and chemistry, because I don´t want to forget that for when I have ¨"killer chem" at guelph. Ugh..haha. My art class is music, where yesterday we sang a lot of english songs. A few of the students know the words, and very few know the meanings of the songs they are singing. They do a good job tho...excellent singers!! Wednesday afternoons, my phys ed class is the one I had on wednesday, when I went to the mountains. We go on excursions. I am quite excited for that class!! I have phys ed this morning...but I did not know that, so I don´t have my clothes. I´ll try to learn more spanish during that time I guess. Well..I´d best be off...chao!
xox
jode
Ps...thanx for the comments everybody..

School and Such

Hola!!
After I last blogged, my sister and I went to buy school shoes (40 bucks for black leatherish shoes....super cheap!) and then went to a store where her friend works. Most of the stores here are very small in the malls. Like..no room for more than like 3 ppl to shop, and one changeroom. Its super cool, and a lot of the clothes are very unique!! Me gusta! Newho, so we were at the store, and her friend asked me to model for his store and another on saturday. He was very excited to learn that I had modeled before, but I am not going to do it, because it is at the casino, and my host family figures (with good reason) that its not the best idea for me to be up there in front of a group of mostly older men.
My first day of school (yesterday) was good. I´d put up a pic of my uniform, but I am again at the university...
As I said earlier, I am in grade 11...I´ll start with yesterday.
I met some girls from my class in the morning (principals picks, and I´d say he made a good choice, cuz they are awesome ppl!!) and then went to castellano (like our english). I feel bad for the teachers of my classes, because most of the students don´t concentrate on their work, they concentrate on me....kind of cool actually!! haha. Any time I say nething, everyone is quiet so that they can hear what I say in very broken spanish. After castellano, we had historia, again, only one of the people i sat with got any history done, even though I did not say all that much. After that was ....I don´t remember, that tells you how much work I get done in class!!! Then was lunch. I got picked up by my host sister, and then went home for about 2 hours. Back to school, wearing a different uniform, because we had phys. ed. We had to run for 10 minutes around the gym, and I ran.....it was good. Then we did 100 abs (i didn´t stop.....which I was impressed with because I haven´t worked out in awhile..) Next was some soccer exercises, and then soccer with teams of 5. I was one of the starting four to pick teams, so I basically chose randomly cuz I didn´t know the skill level or well, really the girl I know the best in the class was also a team captain person. It was fun....After that was philosophia, where we worked on phobias (fobia en español, and pronounced like fovia). I sat with a girl who speaks english, but she knows I want to learn spanish, so uses it only as a last resort. There was a lot of sign language as we tried to communicate. haha, good times!!
After school, I went downtown with a friend, Gabi, of my sister in Michigan (Karen). We looked in different stores, and then went back to her house where I met another one of their friends. Back home, I went pretty much straight to bed, because I could not sleep the night before. Spanish words and their meanings keep on running through my head. I don´t get why they do that when I sleep, but during the day when I want the meaning...it is not there!
Again, last night I could not sleep. It felt like I had not slept at all when my host mom knocked on my door to get up for school. This morning, I had biology and chemistry. I knew what was going on in bio kind of....we did some stuff with chromosomes, but i had no clue in chemistry. Since it was a different class, there was all new people to talk to :) They asked a lot of the same questions, so I didn´t feel as stupid because I already knew some of the answers. Then, i switched from class 3A to 3C for another class. There is 3A, 3B, and 3C and I have to choose which one I want to be in until december. All the classes tell me that theirs is the best, and I wish i could keep on switching so that I would get to meet everyone!!! Home for lunch, and then back to school, but this afternoon I got to go to the mountains!!! There was hardly any snow, mostly ice, but it was very fun...and mucho frio (very cold). I got picked up from school, and now here I am, updating you on my life. I realize that I write alot..never again can I tease my mom for her long emails, because I inherited the same genes. This is a type of journal for me (don´t worry tho nel...yours is in use!!) I do not have classes tomoro afternoon, so hopefully I can go downtown..and shop!!
missing you lots and lots
xoxo
jode

Day 3 So Far

Well..
today I visited my school. It is 400 students, 3 classes of each grade, but 42 students in a class. I met with the principal and an administrator who acted as a translator. They asked me some questions about my marks, what sports I play, and other things like that. I answered in spanish whenever I could, and tried not to make the administrator translate everything. I amazed myself with what I understood, but I can´t wait until I can understand everything being said. There are certain words that I pick up, so I can get the gist of sentences. Back to the school....I have to be put in grade 11 because if I was in grade 12 then I would only be able to go to school until december. But, no big deal, because I likely will have learned most of what is going on. I´am pretty sure that grade 11´´s don´t do much calculus, and even if they do..i will know the concepts!! They were impressed to learn that I was the president of West Hill...and I saw a picture of the council at the school. There is a computer room that can be used during breaks )which are 15 min every 2 hours...there is a ping pong table, foosball, and a stereo (the music is loud during the breaks..pretty sweet!!) There is a little cafe, (i have met and given the ladies who run it a kiss on the cheek..i have actually given almost every teacher in the school a kiss on the cheek!! haha) very different from home..can u imagine?? I have the school uniform.....grey socks, blue skirt, grey sweater, blue blazer, white button up shirt, there is a wind jacket, wind pants, grey t-shirt, and blue gym shorts. My host mother said that my sister Karen (in the States) didn´t like the uniform. As we were driving around town today, I saw lots of kids walking in their uniforms....i have seen like 4 different ones.
School starts at 8 am....i have not been ready at that hour for a long time, but i´ll get used to it! Then we go home for lunch, and back to school at 2:50 til 6:30. Attendance at school is very important, because the government gives money based on the attendance of the student.
I carry my dictionary (diccionario) with me everywhere, and tell people that it is my mejor amigo (best friend..) that usually gets some laughs. That´s all I got for now..
miss ya!
jode

Day 2

So...my second day in this beautiful country is almost at a close. My host family is amazing, very nice, welcoming, and understanding. I laugh alot when I have no idea what is being said. It is an adventure. I have met quite a few people, and there are some questions and answers that I am getting very good at (my age, the number of people in my family etc etc). I am also asked if I play sports, and when I say rugby, people don´t really believe it. They only have it for boys here, and today i met someone who plays wing.
I spent a few hours today with a friend of my host sister who is in Michigan (did that make sense?) We laughed at the fact that my dictionary is my best friend...it is already showing it´s use.
I slept until noon today, apparently I was more tired than I thought. I went with Gabby (the friend) and met her prima (cousin) and some of her extended family. One of her aunts speaks English, so she communicated some of the more difficult sentences, and I was asked if i wanted to go see the horses at the military base. I said yes, and saw the place where my host father works. After I came home, we went to another house, where I met another family with 3 older boys, they were super fun...and spent some time looking up words in my dictionary, mostly to insult each other.
Its funny, I decided before I came that I would try to get a tan. Then i realized that was silly, because people here would be darker. That is true in some cases, but not all. Nicole (cousin of Gabby) saw my skin and was so jealous because I was dark :) Haha...oh the irony.
I go to my school tomoro, for a tour and to get a uniform. Tomoro is the first impression...estoy nervosia. ( I am nervous..)
Newho...I think that is all I got for now
ciao
jody

Departure, Travels, and first day

I guess the first thing to say is that I am safely here! My pink suitcase now has a lot of brownness on the front...but mostly everything was intact.
Thursday was a late night, I went to bed around 1 after going swimming for 1 last time (i dragged lisa along). My alarm went off at 3, and 6 minutes later, i was out of bed.
We left the house around 4 after i gave my dad a final hug. One of my bags was too heavy when we got to the airport, so we rearranged contents to make them more equal. I had to go through customs to enter the states, and got to stamp my own passport. I walked around abit before boarding the plane.
I had a window seat, with a view if I looked backward (my seat was on the back of the wing). For most of the trip, it was cloudy, but I did get to see the grand canyon and the beautiful sights around it.
The inflight entertainment had some glitches, so for about 3 1\2 hours i could only listen to country. I endured it, not wanting to waste my ipod battery.
When I checked in with LAN in Los Angeles, the agent told me I had beautiful eyes, and asked if I was married (its hard to explain the circumstances)...he and his friend didn´t believe I was 17. haha..made my day. The man I sat by on the plane was interesting, a Spanish literature prof at UCLA, he has written 6 books. He spoke english with a heavy accent. We went through customs in Santiago (which we didn´t know we had to do there....I was shocked when I saw my bags on the carousel...) and then I barely made it to my next flight. I had a row of seats to myself, and read\slept.
I arrived, and was greeted by my counselor, an exchange student from Australia who has been here 7 months, my host mother, sister, and a friend of the family. All gave me a kiss on the cheek and i returned it. We went to the grocery store...yogurt is sold in bags and they have a lot of the same brands as here. And tons of vegetables :) Lunch was good, but at that point it hit me that i was going to be gone for a year...and I got homesick. After I just lay on my bed for a bit with my ipod....(and cried a bit..) I was fine and we went to meet the extended family. Again..the kisses. And now...my bags are unpacked, and I should get off the internet.
Missing everyone lots!!!
xox

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